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Markets closed down with the DOW off 181 points and the SP500 closing out at -0.9%. Crude is still climbing after the close, currently at 49.56 and is expected to climb higher in the next several sessions, before retreating.

Todays S&P 500 Chart

The Market in Perspective

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. consumer prices recorded their biggest increase in more than three years in April as gasoline and rents rose, pointing to a steady inflation build-up that could give the Federal Reserve ammunition to raise interest rates later this year.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street sold off on Tuesday as investors boosted their bets on the Federal Reserve raising rates later this year, while Home Depot dragged on indexes following its quarterly report.

ZURICH/LONDON (Reuters) - Novartis is splitting its pharmaceuticals division into two business units, one focused on cancer and the second on other drugs, while switching out its current pharma head in the second high-profile management reshuffle this year.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. ratings agency Standard & Poor's on Tuesday cut the credit rating of billionaire investor Carl Icahn's Icahn Enterprises to junk status after the portfolio absorbed declining investment values and higher leverage in the last few months.

(Reuters) - Home Depot Inc boosted its sales and profit forecasts for the year on Tuesday after a stronger-than-expected first quarter, driven by a healthy housing market and favorable weather that encouraged Americans to spruce up their homes.

LONDON (Reuters) - Standard Life was given an embarrassing dressing down by shareholders at its AGM, with reaction to its 2015 pay report delivering a metaphorical bloody nose to an insurer that in its role as an investor in other companies has itself been critical of high executive pay.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices rose for a second straight day on Tuesday, with U.S. futures hitting seven-month highs, on expectations of a drawdown in U.S. crude stockpiles and a new wildfire threat on Canadian oil supplies.

The US Treasury yield curve is flattening again, with parts finally in 2016 surpassing the bearishness exhibited to start 2015. The mainstream is just now starting to notice likely because unlike last year there are no longer credible excuses to simply wish it away. "Transitory" is not a word you find much anymore, replaced instead by reluctant and forced acknowledgement that there is real economic peril here.

Bearishness in the yield curve is not something new, however, only the notice of it. While risks to the economy are part of this shift in commentary, the Federal Reserve's haplessness is as well.

"The yield curve itself signals that things are not good looking into the future and talking about recession risk," Major said in an interview on Bloomberg Television's "On the Move" with Guy Johnson. "The market is now ready for a long, long time with very low rates and it's been painful because people have been expecting the Fed to do what it said it was going to do. The Fed really wants to hike rates but can't."

Flattening has been the operative condition going all the way back to late 2013; in the 5s10s dating to November 20 that year; in the 2s10s to December 31. That means that credit markets, echoing bearishness in funding, read the economic risks of QE3's pot ...

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